September 05, 2013
Ready, Set…Maybe Not
Last Sunday the preacher reminded us that even
with Jesus preaching, not everyone was convicted. He went on to say, “Some people are just not ready, not open to
the Lord.” For some reason this was one of those ah-ha moments. When my
witnessing seems unsuccessful with friends and family I usually think of it in
terms of rejection, rebellion and lack of understanding. I’m not so sure that
I’ve ever looked at the lost sheep that I’m trying to reach as simply not being
ready. What a relief. Just because I am ready and prepared to impart the WORD
doesn’t mean my friend is ready to receive the Gospel. If a guy’s not ready,
he’s just not ready.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I wonder if we think in terms of “…not ready…” in order to avoid the judgment embedded in terms like “…the path is wide which leads to destruction, and many are those who travel it.” Your preacher was right in two ways, some people are not ready, and others are simply not open to the Lord. We don’t surely know to which category a person belongs, and the certainty of it will not be complete until that person’s life has been lived. But we do know by what Jesus said that many more belong to the latter.
-----It could be, too, that those “many” are people of times and places other than here. Throughout the Muslim world and India and China, those rejecting the Lord are by far and wide greater than those rejecting here at home. Still, America is no church, although it’s governmental form and philosophy and social characteristics were developed by people who were. Until the hellions of spiritual depths escaped being sequestered by a once healthy society, America’s culture bid its folks to know the Lord just by the nature of what it was. Our institutions are now infused with the infectious deceit of trashing the Lord and elevating fairy tales to the replacement of His truths. We are witnessing social metamorphosis. A society once having many who walked the narrow path to life is convulsing into one walking the highway to destruction. So, it is hard to address just by a simple statistical heuristic the possibilities about someone whom you wish to persuade.
-----Should it make a difference? Of course it should. Jesus told the seventy to knock the dust from their shoes of the city which would not receive them. That was a different behavior than what He told them to do in a city which did receive them. Someone not ready is not necessarily being rejecting. My brother once told me he would go to church and worship the Lord when he found the church’s claims to be true. That is certainly a different statement than if he had said he would not worship under any circumstances. And it calls forth a different tact.
-----My childhood best-friend once told me he would never cast his shadow inside the doors of a church. I talked to him often about the Lord before, but little after. I listened to his rejections though, always. Only, I would respond to them before, but afterwards, I would not. I had knocked the dust from my feet. That was probably necessary. For we both acknowledge the Lord when we meet now. Someone got to him when I got out of the way. Or some event did. It was directed by the Lord, though, whatever it was. And it probably needed what he had experienced from me, and it probably needed him being away from me. But it showed that “not ready” can look like rejection, and thus dusting the feet to one’s apparent rejection might help them become ready. Each of us is not the Lord's only tool.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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